Romanticizing the Past...(?)

John Ummel · From: Arlington, WA.

A very common, normal, phenomenon among all people, in all walks of life...to romanticize the past. But is it healthy? is it productive? or does it just keep one stuck in the past? I sense a real tendency here on the forum to do just that. Country music was better, more country; Rock oriented producers hadn't taken over Nashville; there were real country singers, not these disrespectful kids with holes in their jeans we have today; etc etc....and a lot of these things are true, boy I'd love to go back in a time machine and see Bob Wills playing live with Eldon & Leon! Man that was some great playing. But nope, I would not trade it for today, we have better instruments, better amps, better recordings, and all of those things from the past at our disposal. I can listen to Noel Boggs and then put on Perlowin playing Stravinsky. I think THESE are the good 'ol days & we should embrace that.

(MHO)
Johnny

[This message was edited by John Ummel on 25 January 2006 at 08:01 PM.]

Dave Mudgett · From: Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee

There's a natural tendency to wax nostalgic. I think it's fine, provided one doesn't get too intractably tied to it. Of course, the reality is the past is gone forever, and change is the one sure thing.

The good thing is that modern technology has made it possible to preserve the past like never before. Want to watch "To Have and Have Not" with Bogart, Bacall, and Hoagie Carmichael? No problem. Listen to early Ray Price and the Cherokee Cowboys? It's easy. New music, art, movies, and so on, is just gravy. And there's lots of gravy - for example, tons of good new music - but a lot of it is not played on the free radio airwaves. That's what Record and CD players, XM, and so on, are for.

There are more listening possibilities in music than ever before. But the glass will never be "all the way full". There will always be something to gripe about. Good thing - some of us just like to gripe.

HowardR · From: N.Y.C.-Fire Island-Asheville

My glass is never half empty. It's always half full.....of vodka...

I'd much rather romanticize the past (without getting lost in it) and remember the good things. The music & the times (that go hand in hand), and being younger.

Personally, it gives me the positive outlook to face the future.

[This message was edited by HowardR on 24 January 2006 at 03:57 PM.]

Tim Jones of Kansas · From: Andover, KS, USA

Hmmm...

Well, of course today we are more technically advanced have more at our disposal. I may not be one who lived through the more favorable times in country music, but I can't get enough of it. To me, it's not wanting to live and do things like they did in 1955, it's keeping that traditional country style alive. You don't have to sing an old song to get the old sound.

Everyone has different views. And thats what makes this forum fun.

Tim Jones )~Fender 1000 and NOTHING else~(

Dave Mudgett · From: Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee

A single malt, served with a brace of roast pheasant by a roaring fire in January. Half full is just fine, thanks. An ode to a bygone era.

Papa Joe Pollick · From: Swanton, Ohio

Besides the better equipment and advanced technoligy,look at the learning material available now..Many of us had only radio and a few recordings.Maybe a few books,if we were lucky..A teacher? 20 miles away,that's like 50 miles today.{Talkin bout the 30's here}.Yeah, those things cause me to wish I were a kid in todays{musical} world.
As for nostalgia,I make it a point to spend at least 1 day a month just listening to and playin those old tunes that I learned as a child.Thats my "roots".Mother Maybelle,Acuff,Wills,Sons of the Pioneers.But I won't allow myself to just live in the past and not pay attention to whats happining now.It was great music then and it's still great music,but there is great music being done today too. Am I ramlin? Time for my meds. PJ

Marlin Smoot · From: Kansas

Knowing where we've been (the past) helps us know where we're going (present and future). The only thing constant is change.
I think at some point, country music will come full circle to where it began. It will seem fresh and new again. It may or may not be in our lifetime...but I think it will happen. We hear and see little bits and pieces of that happening now.

Skip Edwards · From: LA,CA

I dunno.. to me recorded music is alway kinda in the present, since it's available in the here & now.

And you know what they say...
"Memory Lane is not a well-lit road."

[This message was edited by Skip Edwards on 24 January 2006 at 05:12 PM.]

Calvin Walley · From: colorado city colorado, USA

when they start making MUSIC again i'll listen to it, when they start dressing like STARS again i'll watch them ...till then i'll be @#*%@@@%#* if i will listen to or watch the no talent skanky looking noise makers of today .they go on T.V. today wearing holes in thier jeans and expect ME to think they are STARS , NOT IN THIS LIFE TIME

calvin

------------------
ZumSteel

Eric West · From: Portland, Oregon, USA, R.I.P.

I think too often some "older folks" in my age group or older start cutting down their working fellow players to make what they did ( or in many cases just wanted to do) seem more significant.

It's very unbecoming when it's so obviously not true to begin with.

Waxing nostalgic for Alvino Rey Speedy West or Mr Byrd is one thing. Cutting down the Randall Curries', Tommy Whites', Russ Hicks', Paul Franklins, or even the Robert Randolphs for ANY reason is quite another.

I'd think it'd be embarrassing, so I'd hesitate to do it.

If I ever do. I have friends that will shoot me as per my request. No matter what I say.

EJL

Donny Hinson · From: Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.

Jim Cohen · From: Philadelphia, PA

It's not healthy, they say
To relive yesterday
But for me it's a way to survive"

(Kinda sums it up, don't it?)

Mike Selecky · From: BrookPark, Ohio

But Jim, I thought you could never figure out a way to .. nevermind

Ted Solesky · From: Mineral Wells, Texas, USA

One thing that I like is the way Lloyd and Tommy put a new face on the old country songs when they did that video together. They played the classics but made it interesting again. I've been trying to do that whenever we do stuff like 'Chicken Wings' or A-11. I interject a newer style in an old song - keeping it country.

scott c anderson · From: grosse ile, mich USA

Interesting topic guys.... Here's my two cents on the subject, and worth every penny you paid for it.....

Guess I could be accused of being hung up a little more in the past than most average folk. Some say I was born about thirty years too late. But in reality, I seem to just find what i like, and stick with it. As a young kid here in suburban Detroit, back in 69, I heard Cash doing "Folsom" on our local country station WDEE AM here in the "Motor", and from that day, i was hooked. While ALL my buddies were listening to their bubble gum rock, and the hardcore guys were listening to Zeppelin, and the Stones, ol' Scott was fancying himself with some mighty fine country from back in the day. Pretty rare for a kid living in a typical UMC neighborhood in suburban Detroit.

Listening to these songs today even, takes me back to a great time in my life, carefree, and such the antithesis of today. I listen to "Easy Lovin" by Freddie, and i can remember exactly when it came out, where I was, etc. This is the case with many of the songs from my youth. Where were you when you heard Jeanne sing "Satin Sheets" for the first time?? (Play it Lloyd, Play it....)

My music is alot like some of my hobbies. Jeez, the ex thought I was dangerously obsessed with the past. (?) (maybe that is why she is my EX !!!) :^P But I restore old cars as a hobby, and have a few older motorcycles, and have a vintage older fiberglass Chris Craft Cruiser too, all the top of the line in their time. Quality, baby, Personified. They don't make 'em like 'at ennymore, as i always say.

Same with our Country Music today. Sure, I truly respect, and like the steelers that play on the "New Country" songs of today, but look at the reverence in which we here on the forum hold in legends like Lloyd Green, one of my own personal living heroes. He is now recording more and more of late. He is being "Re-discovered"...

It's just kinda like the latest craze in automotive design. Ya know, Retro-Cool...Yeah baby... What is old, is new again. What about the "New" Mustang, T Bird, Camaro, and did YOU see the new Dodge Challenger Concept Car?? Holy Kowalski !

The line from Barbara Mandrell's song keeps ringing in my ears, "I was Country when Country wasn't Cool"..... Jeez, you'da thought they had me in mind when they wrote that one....

You want to hear a classic example of what Country Steelin ought to sound like from the Golden Age...listen to "Don't Mess With Another Monkey's Monkey" by Paycheck, with Mr. Green on the steel. Holy Jeez.... Or take it back even farther than that, listen to some old Esquivel, and check out Alvino Rey having a ball with his steel in that quirky, novel "Space Age Bachelor Pad" music. Very very entertaining.(one martini, very dry, comin' up!)

I guess one should learn from the past, but not be obsessed by it. I was never too good at listening to the teachers though.

Think now I will go put on a vintage Faron album, on my 59 vintage Thorens swiss turntable, piped through my huge 70's Marantz reciever, finally coming out of my vintage 1958 Electro Voice 15" speaker enclosures.

Me?? Hell no, I am NOT hooked on the past. :^P

Well, gotta go.... my '57 Hamilton Ventura wristwatch tells me it's past my bedtime, shoot, i might miss Jack Paar tonite....

Scott A.

Sidney Ralph Penton · From: Moberly, Missouri, USA

the old days was good. i could cruse around town for a buck of gas. i could get my cigs for $.23. they had good music back then and they got good music today too. i believe that the bands looked better when they all dressed the same it was more professional like. today not many do that. i remmeber the old days it was fun but i wouldn't like to be that age today. we had it good in the old days today it is rough out there no matter what your doing or where your at. i have few regrets of my past but those are mine and mine alone. i wouldn't want to be a kid growing up in todays world. everything is so expencive and mostly over priced. however i am blessed with friends that think the same as i do. when you see somoene needing help help them! its the only way to live and the most rewarding. i know it sounds like i am old but i am not old i refuse to get old and i refuse to grow up. all i need is a woman to take controll over me. lol doc

------------------
zum SD10 peavy vegas 400 peavy session 400 steelseats they are great at sales@steelseats.com
if its not a zum steel it isn't real
just trying to steel for the Lord>

John Ummel · From: Arlington, WA.

Jussi Huhtakangas · From: Helsinki, Finland

Scott A, we need to talk!!! Last night I was listening to a Faron Young album on my - 61 Thorens turntable through an early 70's Tandberg speakers, powered by early 60's Leak tube hifi system. And guess what's on the shelf next to the hifi system; yup a Hamilton Ventura!! ( well, not the real thing, just a Japanese replica, but you'll get the idea!! )

Klaus Caprani · From: Copenhagen, Denmark

That phaenomena is probably a bi-effect of our tendency to forget bad things faster than the good stuff (a mere human psychological self-defense).

That way you only remember the the "good" of the good old days. You probably left the most of the trash backthere

------------------
Klaus Caprani

MCI RangeXpander S-10 3x4
www.klauscaprani.com

Bill McCloskey · Posted 25 Jan 2006 5:06 am

I've never been one to cling to anything in particular. I am always interested in new discoverys rather than dwelling on past ones. That is not to say that I don't listen to older music, but it is usually someone who I haven't really discovered before. For instance, I never listened to a lot of early Louis Armstrong, so I'm getting into that at the moment, but that is not really nostalgia since I didn't have exposure to the music. For me it is the new discovery that gets me excited, the old gets rather stale. I have zero nostalgia for my youth. I don't even think about it. My entire philosophy has always been based in the present moment.

Ray Minich · From: Bradford, Pa. Frozen Tundra

Yep, these can become the "good old days" if the future tanks.
I always wonder if I'm living in the "good old days" or if they are still to come.
"We didn't know we was poor..."

Gene Jones · From: Oklahoma City, OK USA, (deceased)

The late Peggy Lee's song, "There'll Be Another Spring", kind of sums up this thread for me.

------------------

GUITARS ETC
WEBSITE

Bob Blair · From: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

I like Bill McClosky's take on things - as fate would have it I've been discovering/rediscovering Satchmo these days (stuff I heard all the time as a child because it was my parent's music). But in this tiny little slice of time we get to occupy, it makes no sense to me at all to think that the past of thirty or forty years ago was the pinnacle of human acheivement, whether in terms of music or anything else. In the overall scheme of the universe, or even the scheme of modern humanity, the gap between our past and present is a nothing. If you don't think there is anything new that is worth pursuing, playing, listening to or whatever, stop whining about it and make something new yourself, or discover something new, or something. I see the value in preserving and even glorifying aspects of our musical past, but why some folks have to vilify the new in order to do that mystifies me.

And try as I might, I can't take myself seriously if I try to romanticize six nights-a-week-with-Saturday-Matinee performing C&W covers while wearing cheap, ill-fitting matching shirts (did anyone really, seriously think that they looked "sharp"?) in dirty, smoky bars full of (at least in some cases) drunken criminals. It was fun, but it wasn't the pinnacle of anything!

John Ummel · From: Arlington, WA.

Bob B, you really hit it on the head there, beautifully elaborating upon what I was thinking when I wrote my initial post. (Just a side note, I remember in my very early playing days, one band leader's wife bought these shirts for all the band members. They had frilly lace around the cuffs & collars. I refused to wear it!!)

Jim Blakey · From: SanAntonio, Texas, USA

I'm with Donnie and Calvin, and yes when we dressed alike, it did make a difference, to the people who payed to listen. While were on this subject, someone was talking about ACL and some kid named Ryan Adams, boy, the steel guitar was great.

Forum Index > Steel Players	Goto page 1, 2, 3 Next	Next oldest topic :: Next newest topic